India's Olympians Now Competing Under Own Flag

After IOC lifts ban mid-Games
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 11, 2014 8:33 AM CST
India's Olympians Now Competing Under Own Flag
In this Feb. 10, 2010 file photo, Shiva Keshavan, of India, takes a practice run during the men's singles luge training session at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics in Whistler, British Columbia.   (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)

Had an Indian athlete won an Olympic medal before today, he would have seen the flag of the International Olympic Committee raised, rather than his own. Not that it was ever really an issue: The country has only three athletes in the Games, with its top prospect coming in 37th out of 39 lugers on Sunday. (And his training run crash has been deemed "must-see moment" No. 6 of 20 by NBC.) Still, its flag is now its own after a ban on India's Olympic Association was lifted, the BBC reports.

That ban, from the IOC, came after the IOA in 2012 elected officials who were staring down corruption charges in connection with the 2010 Commonwealth Games; a new slate of elections on Sunday undid the damage, but not before the opening ceremony, in which the three athletes entered Fisht Stadium as "independent Olympic participants," reports the AP. "The Indian flag will be raised in the [Sochi Winter Games] village, at a time to be announced," per an IOC rep. The BBC notes such a suspension has never before been lifted mid-Games. (More 2014 Sochi Olympics stories.)

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